The Application of Human Factors by Doe Nuclear Facilities

Abstract

In June 1982, The Office of Nuclear Safety of the Department of Energy initiated a contract with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to determine the extent to which human factors technology is being applied to DOE nuclear facilities. This project, now in its third year, was initially conducted with the assistance of BioTechnology, Inc., and beginning in 1984 with Essex Corporation. The objective is to identify generic areas where human factors can be applied to improve the safety of nuclear facilities. To accomplish this objective, six tasks are being performed. Each task is intended to improve the awareness of DOE and DOE contractor personnel with human factors technology or to provide practical guidelines and bibliographic and other materials that can be used to design new and evaluate existing DOE nuclear facilities. The emphasis in all of these tasks is to reduce the occurrence of human error and to minimize the safety consequences of undetected or unre-covered human error.